Baby sweaters, shawls and socks - oh my!

Finally, another post, and a fiber post at that! :) Just rounding up all of the works in progress that I have been doing over the summer and some that I just started. First up is Laurie's master graduation present socks, using hand dyed superwash merino yarn. I didn't like the way that the yarn was flashing and pooling in the first pattern that I started with this yarn, but I really like how the second one is knitting up. Much more stripey then flashy. This was my daytime car ride project for our road trips and has kind of been put on the back burner until the baby sweaters get done.

When we were up at Laurie's family's cabin for vacation, we went to a small yarn shop in Murphys, CA called Maisy Blue. The yarn that I picked up there was 100% cashmere, lace weight. I am knitting an Ishbel shawl with it. The size will probably be more like a scarf than a full sized shawl, but I'm very happy with it. It is just amazingly soft to touch and a pleasure to knit with.

This is a little bit of a random entry but here are the pictures of silk hankies that have recently become part of my stash. The one on the far left lower corner I bought at the Estes Park Wool Market and the other three in the picture were dyed by Barbara, a friend from TYF, and given to me in a swap for some of Bennett's fiber. It was total coincidence that they matched so well! There are about 2 ounces of silk total.

And finally, the yarn for the baby sweaters! This first picture is of the yarn that I'm using for my sister, Jessica's baby, Paul. I'll be knitting him a newborn sized Baby Surprise Jacket with this superwash merino sock yarn. It's coming along nicely, I hope to have it finished for the baby shower. I also plan to knit him another sweater, but have not gotten the yarn for it yet...

Here is the yarn for a sweater that I'm making for Laurie's sister's newest addition to the family, Dominic. He was born just a few weeks ago, and alas as it is summer is not in dire need of a sweater, so I'll be making a size for him to wear when the weather gets cooler. I plan to stripe it with these three colors, it will be very cute! (I am thinking of using the pattern for this sweater for Paul's second sweater depending on how it goes to knit this one.)

(I hope you like the colors, Christy!)

The end of summer vacation

Laurie and I returned home from our last summer vacation a week ago Sunday. I've held off posting due to a combination of things, I've not been feeling well (I have costrochondritis) and the camera died up at the cabin on our trip and we've been searching for the charger since we got home and finally found it two days ago, but when I went to upload the pictures on the camera, we realized that the card reader was MIA as well, so it took some time to find that, too. So now I can post! - with pictures!

Laurie and I headed up to her family's cabin for practically the whole month of July. It was beautiful up there and we had a lot of fun doing some outdoor activities. We thoroughly enjoyed the brand new deck on the cabin. I was able to sit out in the shade in the afternoon in the cool weather spinning for the Tour de Fleece. We kept the bunnies out on the deck in their pen during the day and in the car, safe and sound from animals, during the night. Bennett had a fabulous time with the deck. Supervised, he had endless fun dashing around the furniture and hopping up and down on chairs and leaning off the balcony as far as he could stretch his little head. There were lots of binkies. :) Ella was a little wary of the deck and definitely didn't think it was as fun as Bennett did. On our trip, we discovered they both had fur mites again but there was not a bunny vet to be found up in the Sierras, so we held our breath that neither of them would get too bad and waited until we got home. I actually had the medication at home, but needed the proper dosing instructions for each of them. Bennett's mites were healing on their own, but Ella is not looking that great right now. We actually have a vet visit scheduled for today for Ella because she seems to be having incontinence issues and is urinating just about anywhere. We think that she might have a bladder infection because she doesn't seem to have control to hold her bladder, she just goes when it strikes her. This really became apparent a few days ago when I was petting her in my lap and she peed all over me, which is something she has never done before. She's always politely nipped before to indicate that she needed to be put down to use the litter box. The inside of her pen is just soaked with urine. We'll see what they say at the vet's later today.

While we were up at the cabin, we drove about an hour or so to some hot springs. This particular hot springs is run but a state park and they pump the water into pools. There is one hot pool and one cool pool, and they both have accessible lifts to get into the water. We spent an afternoon there, I absolutely loved bobbing around in the water in my life jacket (even though I surely looked like a dork :-P). It was really relaxing and the water was cool on a hot day. We also took a day trip into a little town near the cabin called Murphys. We went wine tasting and bought some yummy wine and then we went to the local yarn store. The store was more of a cross between a yarn store and a stationary/book store, but it was very nice and the owner was extremely friendly. I bought some yummy cashmere yarn that will be in the next post, and a very cute book called Woolbur, which features a really cute free spirited little sheep who wants to shear, card, spin, dye and weave differently from the herd. We also bought some little books for Laurie's nephews.

Perfectly timed with our departure, Laurie's sister gave birth to her 3rd child, another little boy, named Dominic David. We got to see him in the hospital and spend a short amount of time with him the night he came home. It was a treat to be able to see him and hold him and coo over him before we had to leave for home. Laurie is hoping to go back to CA in September, and I know that she is looking forward to seeing baby Dominic again (and the two other boys!).

I have another post planned for the crafty stuff that I have planned but I think that will happen later as it's lunch time!

Here are some pictures of the bunnies enjoying their vacation on the deck: